Forum:Site Overhaul
Hello everyone, it is Godisme. I know that all the new users are wanting to add content to the site which is great but their is a complete lack of organization in doing this. Ever since I took over the site I have been trying to do an overhaul. This is not easy as it takes time and I seem to be the only one who pays any attention to the rules I put in place to keep the site organized and looking good. If everyone could please read the new policies and especially the manual of style it would be a start. This forum will be used to go over the details of this overhaul. Main Problems Images People are uploading images all the time to the site under terrible file names like File:00009b573c89. How does that make sense to do? Images should be given a good file name. If File:00009b573c89 is an image of Ryu cutting up a Werewolf, please name it File:Ryu Cuts Werewolf. That is much easier to remember and use is it not? Also, people are throwing images anywhere they please on articles and using whatever size they want. This is not organized. When you put an image in an article, place it before the start of a paragraph. It should not go in between a word. So instead of "Ryu makes his way thr ough the castle and kills the werewolves" Try doing this: Ryu makes his way through the castle and kills the werwolves. Is that so hard? Also you will notice that I used Image: instead of File:, this is how it should be done. Image makes things easier to catalog. You will also notice that the image is 190px in size. This is how it should be. 190px is a very good manageable size that does not divert one's attention immediately to the image instead of the text. Remember, it is the text that is important. Also, use thumb on all images that are not profile images. Thumb, not frame. Profile images are mostly the same except they are to be 290px and they are not thumbnails and don't have a side. So a profile pic would look like . Layouts This is our biggest problem, there is no order to how the layouts are done. The manual of style is pretty clear on this but no one seems to have read it. Soon we will have a tool that takes care of this for us but until then it has to be done manually. If you look at our pages now, some characters have an abilities section. Some have an Abilities and Powers section. Others have a Powers & Abilities section. Some articles have an introduction section, some just start the page with an introduction and leave out the section heading. We have pages that go Personality, Appearance, History, Plot, Trivia. Others go Appearance, Personality, Plot, History, Trivia. There needs to be some order here. Again, read the manual of style. It is your friend. There is a layout guide as well. Please start your pages with the appropriate infobox and then follow the manual of style. Infoboxes and Projects I have created several new infoboxes to brighten up the site and have been working with a new tool that will be launched soon to help with the layouts. Until then though we have to add them manually. They are very simple, they just need to be added by someone. In addition, there are a few projects I created that no one seems to have noticed. The Ninja Gaiden Wiki:Article Improvement Project is where you will find details of what you can do to help the site. The Ninja Gaiden Wiki:Grammar Corner is a simple project if you are good with grammar. Then there is the Ninja Gaiden Wiki:Guides Project which seeks to write a guide for every chapter of every game. Sign up and get started on these. Out Of Universe Wording This is a simple fix if people payed attention. Don't use out of universe wording. What this means is don't refer to the fact that these are games. Act like this is the world we live in and that Ryu and company are real people. Write about them like you were writing a biography of a living person. If you need help changing something, ask me and I can help you make it in universe. User Rights Ideally I would like to do something like the Bleach wiki. I edit over there a lot and on there I am on something called the Policy and Standards Committee. This is a small group of users who have some special privileges on the site. The biggest of these is the rollback ability. This is an ability that allows a user to quickly undo all edits to a page by the most recent contributor. It is very handy in undoing vandalism. This of course would mean that we would need users who watch out for vandalism and edits that do not follow the manual of style. Other abilities that committee members have are the power to close discussions that are old or settled and to move discussions to the proper place. Members are supposed to help other general members of the site, settle issues that do not require admin intervention and to regularly assist in the projects on the site such as the article improvement project and the guides project. Once I see members are paying attention to the policies and doing some good work around the site, I will consider forming a group like this. The main purpose of the committee is to take care of the bulk of the work such as improving articles, watching out for vandalism and helping users. This leaves the admins free to do the more extensive stuff like article overhauls, improving the look of the site and other admin only abilities. Also, in the future I may be looking for another Admin. Currently there is only me and Kusanagi Hiei but Kusanagi cannot always be on regularly. I would be looking for someone with moderate to advanced skill in wiki code and someone that can be on for at least an hour 5 days a week. Comments I understand that the site is lacking content but we need to improve everything else along with the content. I am trying to get a lot done myself but I just don't have the time to sift through 200 articles by myself. If you have any comments, leave it below--[[User:Godisme|'God']] (Pray) 21:23, January 14, 2011 (UTC) Read the articles I needed to read to start helping with the overhaul. Still abit confuse about the layout after reading the "manuel of style", but since the majority of the character/enemy pages go intro, appearance, personality (if main character), abilities and powers, history, strategy (if an enemy), trivia, I think I'm going to with that. Also can you change the secondary weapon template to a different color, white on white hurts my eyes.FoxMikage 21:59, April 3, 2011 (UTC) Never mind, found the layout guide page, just going through the whole site and some of the history.FoxMikage 01:43, April 4, 2011 (UTC)